Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 30 - Rumors
Chapter 30 – Rumors
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Ju-seong grabbed One-Eyed Wolf by the hair and headed toward the outer part of the annex.
There he saw beggars gathered around leftover food as before. All the beggars from around the abandoned manor also gathered, surprised to see their branch head being dragged away.
Ju-seong dumped the branch head in the middle of the courtyard and spoke.
“Is this man your branch head?”
“Yes.”
“That is right, yes.”
Several beggars answered in a disorderly chorus. Ju-seong grabbed One-Eyed Wolf’s hair and lifted it to show his ruined face as he shouted.
“I looked around, and some of you are dressed neatly while others look like true beggars. Some beat others, others get beaten. And why are there so many without arms and legs, huh?”
Ju-seong looked around and ground his teeth. Boys who looked barely ten years old were each missing a limb.
“It is natural for cripples to become beggars. But why are there no blind, deaf, lame, mute, hunchbacks, or harelips, only young boys without limbs? I am so curious I could die. Why is that? Huh? You want to answer?
Ju-seong lifted One-Eyed Wolf’s head and asked, but the man spat phlegm mixed with dirt at the ground and snarled.
“I do not know, you bastard. A cripple became a cripple, what reason is there? Why do you want to see other cripples so badly? Got some special tastes? If you are looking for those, try the back-alley brothels. Do not bother me!”
Even with all his front teeth knocked out, he managed to articulate curses quite clearly.
Ju-seong let out a hollow laugh.
“Wow, this one is really an interesting bastard.”
Just then, a boy tottered forward on a crutch.
“Warrior sir, that damnable man made us this way. He made us beg and bring money, and every three months, whoever brought the least had a limb cut off!”
Ju-seong looked down and asked.
“Is that so?”
One-Eyed Wolf stared at the boy who had stepped forward with his single eye fixed intently. Just as the boy’s face was about to pale, Ju-seong immediately moved his hand to shove One-Eyed Wolf’s face into the dirt.
Ju-seong could no longer hold back and released the killing intent he had been suppressing.
“Where do you think you are looking?”
-Sssshhhh!
The area fell silent in an instant. The beggars around could not move, as if they had become frogs before a snake. Even Red Beggar’s eyes twitched and goosebumps rose all over his body.
One-Eyed Wolf, who took the brunt of that killing intent, had already wet himself.
Having revealed himself once and seized control of the atmosphere, Ju-seong clenched and unclenched his fist several times, deliberating.
‘I want to kill him myself…’
But it would be better in appearance if Red Beggar executed him; it would also be better for Ju-seong himself.
“Red Beggar, you deal with this man.”
“Ah, understood.”
Red Beggar came forward to where Ju-seong was and shouted.
“Listen up, everyone. I am a certain Hong who was branch head up north! Originally, I came for other business, but seeing what this damnable wretch has done, I cannot just pass by. You brothers here all know what he has done. Is that not so?”
Red Beggar raised his voice like a street ruffian, and only then did the beggars escape their surreal terror and answer sporadically.
“Oh my, yes we know.”
“Indeed, we know best.”
Red Beggar drew his Dog-Beating Staff and shouted. Not his own, but the boxwood club One-Eyed Wolf had been wearing.
“Listen here, listen here. Let us review this man’s crimes. Skimming the proceeds and pocketing money, dressing only himself and his lackeys in fine clothes and feeding them hot meals.”
Ju-seong, sitting back behind, chanted as if reciting a verse.
“Intimidating and bullying young women into his bedchamber.”
Red Beggar took over again.
“Do not get me started, cutting off the limbs of boys to make cripples and sending them to beg in the streets, what about that!”
Ju-seong concluded the verses they had improvised on the spot.
“Heaven sees, the sun sees, the moon sees, even Maitreya watches clearly, yet he feels no shame!”
Red Beggar stood behind the kneeling One-Eyed Wolf, raised the boxwood club with blazing eyes, and proclaimed.
“Though I am a branch head from another region, I judge that the Qingling County Beggars’ Sect has lost its function due to the branch head’s atrocities, and I, Hong Chil, will temporarily act as branch head. Former branch head of Qingling County, what is your name?”
One-Eyed Wolf cackled.
“Are you insane? Doing a play? Ha ha ha, what a joke, a name. What right do you have to call yourself branch head? This town’s branch head has been our family for generations, you bastard! Some rootless outsider barges in…”
As he raved, Ju-seong quietly approached from behind and stomped on One-Eyed Wolf’s ankle, shattering it.
“Gaaahhh…”
With a scream, he shut his mouth.
Red Beggar nodded slightly to thank Ju-seong, then continued.
“You will not give your name, so I will not ask. Anyway, the brothers here know your crimes, I know, and Brother Ju-seong over there knows, so you are guilty.”
“Ha, haha, what nonsense…”
One-Eyed Wolf laughed with all his might. As if the sight of an outsider branch head barging in to judge the original branch head were absurd.
He hoped the beggars of Qingling County would feel revulsion toward these strangers.
But no one in the courtyard sided with him.
“As branch head, I pronounce judgment. The former branch head of Qingling County has committed deeply wicked crimes, so I, the new branch head Hong Chil, shall personally administer one stroke of the rod as punishment.”
Ju-seong stood beside and muttered to himself.
‘So his real name was Hong Chil.’
Rod, meaning a beating.
Originally, to administer just one stroke of the rod meant the offense was so trivial that punishing at all was pointless. In other words, a perfunctory punishment.
But now, the meaning was slightly different.
Milky-white energy rose on the boxwood club Red Beggar held, and even white sparks flew like liquor splashing from a toppled jug.
One-Eyed Wolf craned his neck back to look at Red Beggar’s merciless eyes and the club in his hand.
He looked back down at the beggars. The lives he had ruined were visible. Broken already, they could not even meet his gaze and avoided it.
One corner of his lips twisted up.
The man who had maintained an indignant attitude throughout finally revealed his true colors and spoke in a mocking voice.
“Farewell, you cripp…”
-THWACK!
The thunderous strike of the club cut off the curse-like incantation that was flowing out.
The head stuffed with sin was shattered, and what was inside turned out to be no different from any other human’s.
* * *
The branch head of the Qingling County Beggars’ Sect was dead.
In truth, One-Eyed Wolf was someone who was notorious only within Qingling County, not someone whose name was known at higher administrative levels like prefectures or provinces.
Those who welcomed this news were only the poor and beggars of Qingling County.
That a branch head from another region, one Hong Chil who called himself Red Beggar, had temporarily assumed the branch head position was also not significant news.
However, the nature of the Qingling County Beggars’ Sect changed somewhat.
Its beggars began moving busily, spreading certain news.
In a certain inn in southern Yunnan Province, two men were conversing.
“I hear a sexual predator called the Flower-Snapping Laughing Killer who committed atrocities in the Central Plains has entered Yunnan Province!”
“Goodness, snapping flowers and laughing while killing, what a heinous alias!”
“Indeed. Who knows when that fiend might commit horrors here too. No, word is he has already done it several times! I hear the Green Wood Lotus caught wind first and is investigating everywhere.”
“The Green Wood Lotus?”
“Yes, that is right. They are in a standoff with the Southern Commerce Association, yet still looking out for the people. Not bad fellows after all.”
“Come now. The Green Wood Lotus chief probably fears his own daughter might be victimized.”
“No, really. If the Green Wood Lotus heard about it, the Southern Commerce Association must have known too, yet they are just sitting idle! When you think about it, the Southern Commerce Association started the conflict with underhanded methods in the first place.”
“Well, three out of ten people in southern Yunnan work in tea fields, so looking after the people is important for the Green Wood Lotus too. Still, deploying forces to investigate in this situation is commendable.”
The Green Wood Lotus had heard Red Beggar and Ju-seong out and conducted its own investigation. Yunnan Province had many non-Han tribes and rugged terrain, so even external forces like the Ten Thousand Ears Gang could not have great intelligence.
So the Green Wood Lotus directly deployed martial artists to gather information, and indeed, in remote mountain regions, young women from common households were going missing.
Viewed separately, a person or two disappearing from a mountain village was plausible, but gathered together, it was certainly suspicious.
The Green Wood Lotus initially planned to gather information internally and then capture the Flower-Snapping Laughing Killer to win the Yunnan people’s support.
But somehow the information leaked, and half the people in Yunnan Province now knew about it.
The origin was naturally the Qingling County Beggars’ Sect.
After executing One-Eyed Wolf, Red Beggar spent the next three days informing neighboring forces that the branch head had temporarily changed.
Major martial forces showed truly no interest, and the small ruffian gangs of the back alleys begrudged them slightly.
Those fellows had worked with the Qingling County Beggars’ Sect branch head. Naturally, they were savagely beaten by Ju-seong and Red Beggar and became invalids.
As for the market merchants, they were glad the extortionist One-Eyed Wolf was dead.
Having thus tidied up the surroundings, Red Beggar gathered the beggars in the abandoned manor courtyard and spoke.
“Brothers, we need your strength. Brother Ju-seong beside me and I are pursuing a heinous sexual predator called the Flower-Snapping Laughing Killer. From today, you will cover as wide an area as possible and spread the following information. If you know beggars in neighboring towns, spread it there too.”
“You mean spread rumors? Then we will not have time to beg. How are we supposed to eat?”
When one beggar raised his hand and asked, Red Beggar pointed at him and nodded.
“Good question. Actually, Brother Ju-seong here is the richest man in Sichuan. He will handle your food situation for a while.”
Ju-seong glared at Red Beggar with an expression of disbelief.
“This crazy bastard…”
Red Beggar smiled sheepishly under the cold gaze and quietly placated Ju-seong.
“Brother, this moth monster thing or whatever is not the end after we catch it, is it? You said your reason for coming to the martial world was collecting poisonous creatures. I will help catch the next one too. So please support the funds for this job.”
Ju-seong had set out on his martial world journey with a gold ingot as travel funds. On top of that, he had brought quite a bit of silver.
A long sigh flowed from Ju-seong’s lips.
“Haah. I am the biggest sucker in the martial world. Well, it is not money I earned with blood and sweat, but money from shaking down dark path bastards. Easy come, easy go. Master, your disciple learns another lesson.”
He grumbled at length while pulling silver ingots from his pocket and breaking off pieces in one-tael units with his fingers.
Concentrating deep yellow energy in his fingertips and using them like a small knife was a display of skill that made the beggars gape open-mouthed.
About forty taels piled up on the ground, and Ju-seong spoke.
“This should be enough to live without begging for half a year. But this job will not take that long. A month at most and the work will be done.”
Ju-seong pointed at the pile of silver and continued.
“The Qingling County Beggars’ Sect has many physically disabled people. It is hard for them to make a living except by begging and panhandling. Among those who are not disabled, anyone who wants to escape beggary may take a share of the remaining money after this job is done and leave.”
Red Beggar also nodded beside him. They would try to leave only the disabled here, and those with whole bodies could take some capital and start fresh.
Thus the Qingling County Beggars’ Sect temporarily became an organization spreading information, disseminating news about the Flower-Snapping Laughing Killer to surrounding areas.
In the process, rumors about the two young masters who had appeared in Qingling County also spread.
They were mysterious masters who had overwhelmed the Flying Tiger School martial artists and even slain the notorious branch head of Qingling County.
One used deep yellow energy, the other milky-white energy, which was particularly memorable.
Distinct coloring manifested in one’s energy was a characteristic of excellent cultivation methods.
The energy the Flying Tiger School martial artists released was also a pale blue, and those with weak foundations could only produce a murky haze of indistinct color.
Thus Red Beggar and Ju-seong were called the Yellow-White Twin Tigers, after the colors of their released internal energy.
They were the yellow and white tigers.
They were beginning to make their names known in Yunnan Province.